A log analyzer is an application that runs on a server and parses through the data in a log file. Log files can originate from many different devices some of the most common devices are: Web Server, Firewall, router, switch, and a Windows Server. Monitoring the logs from these types of devices is a task that must not be overlooked. If your goal is to track web site statistics, tracking server issues or monitoring the firewall for attracts on your network a log analyzer is a must have component.
Below is a list of some common uses, benefits and features of a log analyzer software.
Web Log Analysis Software – Tracking Website Traffic Stats
Competing in the online market has become very competitive due to anyone being able to spin up a website. Those competing websites can sell similar products and can be taking from your business. Having the ability to analyze visitors to your site to your site and track patterns, trends in those visitors is a must have. You must analyze your website traffic and integrate this knowledge into your business process. Things to consider: are you paying for traffic and is it converting, how long are visitors staying on your site, where are the visitors coming from, browser types, screen resolution and much much more, all in which a Web log analyzer will do.
Most Important Web Site Traffic Stats
Most Web Log Analysis software will log and report on all kinds of information here is a list of some of the most important stats you want out of a log analyzer software.
Unique Visitors: Refers to how many unique individuals visit your site, this stat separates returning visitors from first time visitors.
Return Visitors: This is a visitor who has already been to your website at some point. A return visitor is a good lead and indicates the user is interested in what your site has to offer.
Bounce Rate: Refers to a visitor that only went to one page on your website then left your site. The lower the bounce rate the better, because it means they like what they saw on one page so they decided to browse other pages of your website.
Average Time on Site: Is just what it says, it’s the average time a visitor spends on your website.
Average Pages Viewed: This is the average pages viewed by a visitor. A higher number indicates more interests from readers.
Most Viewed Pages: Will provide you with a list of pages that have been viewed the most. This provides you with very important information and gives you an idea what is most valuable to your visitors. You can use these web site traffic stats to identify new on demand products.
Web Traffic Sources: This is also one of the top uses for log analysis. You can see where your traffic is originating from, such as a search engine, other websites or direct visitors.
Top Keywords: Log analyzer will keep stats on what keywords visitors are typing into search engines to find your site. This will give you a good idea on where you stand for specific keywords in your site.
Centralized Management of Windows Event Logs
Windows event logs record critical events on computers and servers. It records activity such as when a user logs on to the computer or when an application generates an error. When these types of events occur, Windows will record detailed information about the event in an event log that can be read by Microsoft Event Viewer or a 3rd party log analyzer. The details in the logs are helpful for troubleshooting and for monitoring performance and activity on the system.
An event log can contain error codes, the data and time when it occurred, the computer and user who was logged on, and other information like the event ID, source of the event and category.
If you only have a couple of systems that you need to monitor the event logs on the built in event viewer may be all you need. If you need to manage a large amount of system then you will need a centralized event log management system.
Features of Centralized Event Log Monitoring
- Get fast and cost-effective monitoring and management of the entire network
- Increase network up-time and identify problems through real-time alerts and dashboard
- Real-time alerts, SNMPv2 traps alerting included
- Create custom reports
- Centralized event logging
- Auto-archive all events into files
- Create rules and actions on certain events
- Detection of Windows Events that Refer to Administrators
Firewall Logs Analysis and Monitoring
Just deploying a firewall to protect the network is not enough to keep it secure. You must also implement a log analyzer to monitor the firewall logs. The firewall logs need to be analyzed, monitored, reported and alerts need to be setup. So firewall log analysis is an important task to ensure network security. Firewall logs reveal a lot of information about what kind of traffic is attempting to access your internal network or servers in the DMZ (demilitarized zone). Analyzing firewall logs, provide real time information to network administrators on the attempted attacks and can swiftly initiate remediation action. Typically firewall logs are sent to a syslog server. A syslog server can provide basic alerting and reporting. To provide detailed reporting, and customize alerting in addition to a syslog server you will need a log analyzer for the syslog files. A syslog analyzer can provide the following.
- Quick view on what an event is
- Report what protocols are being used
- Display IP address information such as domain names, location
- Perform complex searches in log files (regular expressions)
- Send alerts on events (email, text)
- Perform an action on certain events (run a task)
Incoming search terms:
- loganalyzer alerts
- alert the events from event viewer
- best log viewer
- event log analyzer monitor for a server on dmz
- system log analizer alert monitoring
- server event log analyzer that emails alerts
- loganalyzer send alerts
- log scanner and alert
- log analyzer and alerting
- log analyzer and alert